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Electrolytic ion leakage is proposed as a method to assess activity access for subsequent biological or chemical processing of forage or biomass. Smaller particle sizes and subsequent processing which increased surface area resulted in higher ion conductivity measures. Ion conductivity needs to be normalized because of potentially different chemical composition among samples. Udy mill processing provided a better common denominator for normalizing conductivity data than blending because it led to a higher extent of plant content exposure and improved consistency among samples. Longitudinal shredding of silage resulted in higher activity access (as indicated by conductivity index) than precision-cut chopping or chopping plus mechanical roll processing.